


Wreckage and Retrieval

by CandyQueenAO3



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: (not Catra and Adora's), (though it's more of a planet than an island), Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst with a Happy Ending, Assumed Character Death, Beast Island (She-Ra), Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Cute, Dorks in Love, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Fear, Fights, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Getting Together, Holding Hands, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Internal Conflict, Lesbian Adora (She-Ra), Lesbian Catra (She-Ra), Magic, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Reunions, Romance, Sad, Swearing, Sweet, Teasing, Technobabble, Tenderness, True Love, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, protective!Hordak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 13,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22337980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CandyQueenAO3/pseuds/CandyQueenAO3
Summary: This fiction is a Science Fiction Alternate Universe in which Catra and Adora own their own business called "Catradora Heroes for Hire" and a spaceship called SWFT-WND.One day they are contacted by an alien named Hordak who requests that they aid him in a rescue mission to Beast Planet. Should they be successful, Catra and Adora will be richly rewarded! However, upon landing, truths are revealed, friendships are tested, and the morality of regicide is debated.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra), Mermista/Sea Hawk (She-Ra)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 75





	1. The Captains of The SWFT-WND

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UnsolvedRubixsCube](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnsolvedRubixsCube/gifts).



> While this fic DOES deal with some potentially dark subject matter (Implied character death, eldritch horror, themes of torture resulting from accidental regicide) I CANNOT stress enough that this is a happy AU. There are no actual villains, and everybody is friendly with one another.
> 
> I wrote this as a late Christmas gift for my best friend, who gave me permission to post here. I hope she enjoys it, and I hope you will too!

Adora felt something lightly tapping her nose.

She groaned and rolled over in her cot, pulling the blankets up over her head.

The tapping came again, this time accompanied by a half-whisper, half-purr of, “Heeey Adora.”

“Go away, Catra,” the woman beneath the covers mumbled.

Adora attempted to burrow deeper into her blankets, only to feel them suddenly ripped away, exposing her to the cold air of her sleeping quarters.

“What the-? Catra!”

The woman in question, Catra, giggled and leapt away, dragging Adora’s blankets with her.

“Wake up, sleeping beauty! It’s a whole new day out here in the vast reaches of nowhere! Just  _ look  _ at that sunrise!”

Catra let the blanket slip from her clawed hands and tapped a panel on the wall beside her, turning said wall entirely transparent.

Adora, now fully awake, sat up in her cot to glare at her best friend.

“ _ What  _ ‘sunrise’? There’s no ‘sun’!” she cried, gesturing at the expanse of space visible through the wall-turned-window. Millions upon billions of stars twinkled through the inky blackness, casting faint pinpricks of light into her dim room.

Catra tutted and tapped the wall panel again, this time flooding the chambers in halogenic light. Adora covered her face with both hands and flopped back down onto her cot. 

“Do you  _ ever sleep _ ?” she huffed.

They both knew the answer to that. Catra’s species, the Felidae, only needed four hours of sleep a night.

Maximum.

Apparently those four hours were up.

“Not all of us have the  _ luxury  _ of sleeping in,” Catra demurred, throwing a hand dramatically across her forehead. “ _ Some  _ of us are busy working on maintaining the SWFT-WND and making sure our business doesn’t fall into complete disarray.”

“Oh please. The SWFT-WND is a self-maintaining Class A Cruiser capable of achieving speeds of 20% greater than FTL travel. It doesn’t ‘need’  _ anybody _ ,”

“Exactly! I’m glad  _ somebody  _ acknowledges my superiority,” chirped the on-board AI.

Adora nodded smartly while Catra rolled her bi-coloured eyes but patted the wall affectionately nonetheless.

“As for our business, you couldn’t crunch a number or build a spreadsheet to save your fur!” Adora continued, not noticing how her friend’s pointed ears drooped.

“So...is there  _ anything _ I’m good for around here?” Catra mumbled.

Adora, having finally noticed the hurt in her friend’s voice, lifted her gaze to meet the other’s.

“Of course you do. You make me happy and make everything a lot more fun,” she stated, desperate to keep the blush from creeping up her neck.

Catra’s pupils dilated for a fraction of a second before returning to their normal shape.

This was a common theme of theirs, it would seem: banter and flirting, right on the cusp of becoming something more, then one or both of them would pull back at the last second.

Catra rapped sharply on the panel, the window fading in transparency until it was back to being a solid wall again.

“I’m going to let you get changed out of your pajamas. I’ve already had breakfast, so meet me on the bridge once you’re done. We’ve got some transmissions waiting,” she said.

Adora nodded once, watching as her friend spun smartly on her heels. The door to her bedroom sliding shut behind her with a whisper of movement. Once again, she was alone in her room with the silence broken only by the faint buzzing of the lights overhead.

Adora groaned and buried her face in her hands.

“‘You make me happy’?! I can’t decide if that was too subtle or not subtle enough! Stars, that cat can be so  _ dense!” _

“If you’d like…” began SWFT-WND’s AI. “...when you go to the bridge, I can maybe dim the lights a little. Play some  _ mood music _ .”

From the communication speakers on the wall, a soft jazzy-tune warbled out. “It makes for  _ excellent  _ romantic ambiance!” he declared.

Adora just waved him off.

“No. It won’t help. I tease Catra all the time for being a little slow on the uptake, but she can’t  _ possibly  _ be that stupid. She knows I’m flirting, and she’s just not interested.”

SWFT-WND cut off the music, and didn’t say anything else. 


	2. Wreckage

On the bridge, Catra sat in her co-pilot’s chair with her knees drawn up to her chest and her striped arms wrapped protectively around herself. Her pupils had now fully dilated to encompass almost the entirety of her sclera, her mane and the fur of her tail standing on end.

“She was flirting, right? She had to be, right? Or was she just being friendly? Trying to comfort me?”

SWFT-WND, had he any arms rather than being a digital consciousness fused to the mainframe of a spaceship sharing his namesake, would have reached out and patted Catra’s shoulders reassuringly. As it stood, he could only offer his sage advice.

“Of  _ course  _ she was flirting! Adora is head over heels for you and you should totally march  _ right back  _ into her room and go make out furiously!”

The switch on the dashboard labelled “Autopilot” lit up in bright green. “I’ll even steer for you to give you some privacy!”

Catra’s eyes narrowed and she hissed warningly at SWFT-WND. 

“What do  _ you  _ know about romance? You’re just a robot!” she muttered.

“Excuse you, young lady, I am an  _ artificial intelligence.  _ It says so right there in the name:  _ intelligence. _ I’m smarter than I look, as gorgeous and sleek as I may be,”

Catra knew how pointless it would be to argue with a being who could  _ literally outlive you should he choose _ and muted the speakers closest to her, silencing SWFT-WND. It was a largely empty gesture, as the AI had access to  _ everything  _ aboard the ship and could just switch it back on with a thought. Thankfully, he seemed to understand Catra’s desire to be alone, and chose to remain on mute.

The Felidae unclenched her body, letting herself slump down in her chair, though her arms remained crossed. As much as she wanted to entertain the notion that Adora had romantic feelings for her, the simple fact of the matter remained that Adora was just being friendly. 

What would that beautiful human see in a mangy Felidae like her anyway? Adora was physically strong, beautiful, and kind. Catra was scrawny, scruffy, and admittedly sometimes difficult to get along with.

She sighed, low and deep, before pressing a button on the dashboard and lighting up the windshield (there  _ had  _ to be a better word for that, Catra thought, there’s not even any wind in space!) with a projection of their inbox for transmissions.

Amongst the usual junk mail and advertisements for nonsense, were a handful or so of messages from previous clients. Catra scrolled to the oldest one from yesterday, and with a gesture of her hand brought it up to fullscreen.

A round, familiar face appeared, with a fringe of pink hair and violet eyes.

“Hey Catra! Hey Adora!” the face chirped, and Catra smiled.

Glimmer.

Catra and Adora had met Glimmer several years ago when their business, Catradora Heroes for Hire, first started up. Glimmer’s parents, Micah and Angella of the planet Brightmoon, had contacted them informing them that their only child had disappeared.

Catra and Adora had tracked her down and returned Glimmer home. As it turned out, Glimmer hadn’t been kidnapped as her royal parents feared, she had simply run away from home after a particularly nasty argument between her and Angella. The entire ride back to Brightmoon, Adora had lectured the princess on the importance of talking things out with loved ones. Glimmer would later credit her reconciliation with her parents to Adora’s “tough love” approach. Glimmer remained in contact with the two Heroes for Hire after their mission was complete, and the three remained friends ever since. Catra smiled at the memory.

She unpaused the recording, allowing Glimmer’s transmission to continue.

“I just wanted to leave you guys a message and see how you two were doing! If you’re ever back in town near Brightmoon, you guys should come visit me! I hope to hear from you soon! Bye!”

Glimmer’s image gave them one final wave before the transmission ended. Catra swiped to the next one.

This time another woman’s face appeared, though she had her arms crossed and looked vaguely embarrassed.

“Hey, it’s Mermista…” she began.

Catra paused the feed. Mermista had been their most recent client. Just a few days ago, she and Adora had been notified by her that her boyfriend, a celestial privateer named Sea Hawk, had been abducted by the pirates he was tailing and needed a rescue.

That mission had, surprisingly, been one of their easier ones. By the time Adora and Catra had been ready to go charging into battle to rescue the man, he had already been jettisoned onto a small planet and needed a ride home more than anything else. Still, he had spent the entire trip home singing Catradora Heroes for Hire’s praises and waxing poetic about how  _ overjoyed  _ he was that his “Queen of the Sea” had been worried about him enough to send “the galaxy’s finest heroes” to retrieve him.

Adora had preened at the praise, but Catra was so annoyed by the privateer’s gushing that she had to be physically restrained more than once to keep herself from clawing his mustache off.

Catra resumed the feed.

“...I just wanted to say thanks and stuff for rescuing Sea Hawk. He’s an idiot and the biggest pain in my butt, but I’d hate to see him dead or something.” Mermista’s portrait muttered, twirling a lock of blue hair around her finger. “If either of you need anything, just let me know. Please don’t, though, because I  _ will  _ complain the entire time I am helping you.”

With that vaguely thankful and vaguely threatening message delivered, the video cut out. There was one more message left, with the Subject simply reading, “Research was a Success!”.

Catra opened it and was immediately assaulted with a barrage of faces and voices. Fifteen people were all trying to cram into view of the camera simultaneously, speaking animatedly over the others. One of them, the youngest-looking, managed to somehow elbow his way to the front of the mob, dark skin sweaty with the effort of doing so.

“Hey Catra! Hey Adora!” the boy, Bow, panted as he jabbed what could only be an older brother sharply in the ribs. “My dads, brothers, and I all wanted to let you know that the artifact you two retrieved for us has yielded  _ incredible  _ results!”

“It’s been  _ instrumental  _ in helping us translate the First One’s bizarre written language!” squeaked an older man near the back of the pile. Bow’s dad George, she thought. Or was it Lance? It was hard to tell with how squished he was between his numerous sons. It might have been George, then, Lance usually wore glasses.

“Yeah, what dad said,” Bow parroted. “Anyway, we thought we’d give you a sort of ‘index’ of the alphabet of the First Ones. Thanks to the tablet you brought back for us, we can now safely say that we have a complete list of all the letters in their alphabet. I’ve attached the index to this message as a .TRAN file. We hope it will help you in your travels and-”

There was a yelp as someone’s hand accidentally shot out, knocking the camera over and ending the recording. Bow and his family hadn’t sent a followup message to that one, so Catra could only assume that they were planning on ending the video soon anyways.

That or their camera remained broken.

Catra had already finished downloaded the .TRAN file to her wrist communicator when the door to the bridge behind her slid open and Adora stepped in.

The woman plunked heavily into her own chair next to Catra’s as she finished tying her blonde hair back in her customary ponytail.

“Any new missions for today?” she asked.

“Nah, just some ‘thank you’ recordings from Mermista, Glimmer, and Bow,” Catra replied, reclining her chair back. “I saved the transmissions so you can see them yourself later.”

“Aw, Glimmer! We should really go visit Brightmoon again sometime,” Adora practically cooed.

Catra just nodded in assent before her trademark feline grin crept across her face.

“Heeey Adora, since there’s no new missions today, how about we take the SWFT-WND for a bit of Asteroid Dodging? I saw a scrap field a little ways back before I woke you up this morning and thought that it would be  _ perfect _ for it!”

Adora just hummed thoughtfully. Her face looked the picture of “we really shouldn’t do that”, but her eyes glittered with the teasing light of “but I can be persuaded to try”, that Catra had become very familiar with over the years. The Felidae smiled, flashing a hint of fang.

That was all the approval she needed.

Catra quickly typed in the manual override code, giving herself complete control of the SWFT-WND away from the AI interference, and yanked the throttle to the right so hard that Adora would have gone tumbling from her seat had she not gripped the armrests in time.

Despite the rough maneuvering, Adora couldn’t suppress a whoop of laughter as her best friend expertly navigated them toward the scrap field.

With the SWFT-WND’s truly phenomenal speed, it was but a matter of moments before the ruined remains of a Freighter loomed into view. It looked like the larger ship had been pulverized by asteroids with how scattered and fragmented it was. All of the wings had been broken off, fractured into pieces that, while smaller than the original 30x10 span, would still be large enough to cause some serious damage to the SWFT-WND should they take a direct hit. The Freighter’s main cabin appeared to still be sealed off from the harsh environment surrounding it, save for the chunk missing where the airlock would have been. 

All in all, it looked like the perfect scrap field for a bit of Dodging.

“I bet I can pilot us close enough to where we could look inside the cabin’s port windows from here,” grinned Catra.

Her claws flexed on the throttle of the SWFT-WND in anticipation.

Adora, in turn, looked mildly nauseous.

“Hey, pussycat, not that I’m doubting your flying skills or anything, but I don’t think that’s a smart move. The SWFT-WND’s wings could clip the hull of that cabin!” she gulped.

“Not if I do  _ this!” _

Adora had all of half a second to brace herself against her seat before Catra pushed the throttle almost completely sideways, flipping the SWFT-WND on its side as it careened forward. 

“Oh my- Catra you’re gonna  _ kill  _ us!” Adora shrieked in a mixture of fear and delight.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you,” came the cool reply.   
True to her word, Catra was able to get them close enough to the Freighter’s untethered cabin without the SWFT-WND’s wings ever coming into contact with it. 

However, she did  _ not  _ account for the slight protuberance of the bridge of  _ their own  _ ship.

The hull of the SWFT-WND scraped violently against the Freighter’s cabin, sending both objects careening away from each other. Now Catra was the one screaming as the entirety of the SWFT-WND spun on its axis.

Adora was thrown from her chair finally, landing hard on the center console.

“We need to get the AI back online!” she yelled.

She punched in the reboot code as fast as her shaky fingers would allow while Catra fought valiantly to reorient the ship. Once the code was successfully entered, the AI booted back on. With the combined efforts of Catra’s handle on the throttle and SWFT-WND’s onboard gyroscope, the cruiser was able to safely return to a neutral position.

Adora groaned and slumped to the floor while Catra patted down her mane which had fluffed up during the proceedings.

“Are you alright, pussycat?”

“I’m fine. You?”

“Yeah,”

“Well  _ I’m  _ not!!” shrieked SWFT-WND. “I was forced into manual override! I just had to watch helplessly while you two nearly piloted me into a catastrophic wreck! I just finished running diagnostics on myself and my hull is scuffed!  _ Scuffed  _ I tell you! I hope you ladies are proud of yourselves!”

Catra and Adora just crumbled in relieved laughter while SWFT-WND vociferously lamented the state of his external paint job. As the laughter died down, Adora turned to gaze out the windshield of the cruiser. The cabin that they had collided with was still pinwheeling merrily away, though now it seemed to have been caught in the gravitational pull of the small planet they hovered over. The external surface of the cabin already seemed to be catching alight as it was pulled down through the atmosphere by the force of the planet’s gravity. Catra came to stand beside her friend and together they watched it disappear out of sight onto the surface below.

“Hope nobody is standing under that when it touches down,” the Felidae muttered.

Her remark set off a new wave of laughter throughout the ship.


	3. An Urgent Transmission

It was maybe an hour or two later when the transmission came in.

Catra and Adora had just finished up lunch and were settling into a peaceful game of cards (right up until Catra flipped the table for losing), when SWFT-WND’s tinny voice called out over the mess hall loudspeakers, “Attention, captains. We have an incoming transmission on the bridge. It appears to be urgent.”

Catra and Adora shared a worried glance.

Throughout the years they had been running Catradora Heroes for Hire they had only received a handful of “urgent” transmissions, Glimmer having been one of them. Could Brightmoon possibly be in danger? Had Glimmer run off again?

The two women wasted no time in making their way to the Bridge, where SWFT-WND had already opened the live feed and brought it up for them. 

Onscreen, a man stood there, hands folded primly behind his back and posture rigid. At least, they thought, he  _ might  _ have been a man? Alien? Honestly, he looked to be some weird combination of the two.

Adora had seen many aliens across the years. There was, primarily, Catra, a member of a rare species called the Felidae. Then there had been Glimmer and her mother who, while at first appearance looked human like Adora, were actually Aerials. Aerials were humanoid aliens who possessed wings and the ability to control raw aether. There had also been Mermista, who was a hybrid belonging to the Aquarian variant of Shifters, a species able to manipulate portions of their bodies into taking on animalistic traits.

One particularly eventful pitstop at a fuel port had introduced Adora to a  _ pureblood  _ Reptilian variant of Shifter named Double-Trouble who had the uncanny ability to take on the form of any other person or species. Catra had found the Reptilian Variant’s lack of sexual dimorphism to be extremely fascinating right up until the Shifter had snatched her headdress away and held it hostage in exchange for being allowed to pet her mane.

The man (alien) on the SWFT-WND’s screen, however, looked nothing like any other species Adora had even  _ heard of, _ much less seen.

He was tall, almost intimidatingly so, and rail-thin with bone-white skin. Everything about this man seemed to be sharp angles, from the tips of his pointed ears to the jut of his chin. Fully red, almost glowing eyes sat sunken in his skull and sparse, navy-colored hair was slicked back close to his scalp. His face remained carefully neutral as Adora fought down the tingle that crawled up her spine. Something about the way the man carried himself made her instinctively wary, almost distrustful.

“This is Catradora Heroes for Hire. What do you want?” asked Catra, completely failing to read the mood (as usual, Adora thought bitterly).

The man’s posture seemed to relax slightly, though his expression remained placid.

“Ah, excellent. I am pleased my transmission made it through,” he intoned in a voice like gravel.

_ Now  _ Catra appeared on edge, her tail poofed up slightly.

“Can we help you, um, sir?”

Adora kept her tone professional, if a little hesitant.

“Yes, you may,” the man began. “I am in need of assistance and I was informed by my colleague, Queen Angella of Brightmoon, that you two may be able to help me.”

At the mention of Glimmer’s mother, Adora allowed a good portion of tension to leak from her shoulders. If Glimmer’s family trusted this man with information, he couldn’t possibly be all bad? Right?

Catra seemed to feel the same, though her eyes did narrow slightly.

“Depends on the kind of ‘assistance’ you need. If you want us to smuggle slaves or drugs or something, you’re barking up the wrong tree Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Spooky,”

“ _ Catra!” _

The Felidae winced as an elbow was sharply driven into her arm, though she never took her eyes off the screen. The man in question allowed his mask to slip for just a fraction, letting a look of wide-eyed surprise and genuine hurt leak through. He quickly schooled his expression back into its previous position, if just a little more “frowny”.

“I can promise you that no smuggling will be involved, though the matter for which I’ve contacted you  _ is  _ time sensitive,” he said.

Catra and Adora glanced at each other, communicating without words.

“Alright, what’s the situation?” Adora finally asked.

“And what’s your name?” Catra piped up as she stepped slightly in front of her friend, almost protectively. 

The man’s mask slipped once again, giving the captains a brief hint of what appeared to be relief.

“Thank you for accepting my mission request. My name is Hordak, and as of 9:47 CT I received a distress signal from someone...essential to me. I was able to track her coordinates to the surface of a small world commonly referred to as ‘Beast Planet’. Normally, it would be but a trivial matter for me to touch down on the planet myself and retrieve her, but Beast Island is an inhospitable place,”

“Pfft, why? Is it full of monsters?” Catra snickered.

“Yes and no. While there are a truly vast number of hostile species which call the planet home, that is  _ not  _ why it is named such,” Hordak lifted a clawed hand to run through his hair, straightening it though there were no strands out of place. A clear tell of nervousness. “The planet  _ itself  _ is a beast, in a sense. No sentient races have been able to successfully colonize the surface because there’s something  _ terrible  _ that calls the planet home. It whispers in your mind and feeds upon your fears, doubts, and insecurities like a parasite.”

Adora couldn’t resist the shudder of revulsion that ran through her. Catra looked slightly unnerved, but it was eclipsed by naked excitement at the thought of a truly  _ exciting _ !

“I don’t know about this, pussycat,” Adora leaned over to whisper in a pointed ear. “Beast Planet sounds a little above our paygrade.”

Hordak seemed to hear her, for he gestured at the screen and a truly  _ staggering  _ number appeared. Adora’s jaw dropped at the payment amount and Catra openly swore.

“I can assure the both of you that, upon successful completion of the mission, you will receive the offered payment in full,” he said, as if the amount of money on offer wasn’t enough to buy the SWFT-WND ten times over! “If the mission cannot be completed and we are only able to retrieve her...remains…” Hordak’s throat bobbed at the thought. “You both will receive half, instead.”

Adora could see Catra’s tail swishing back and forth and her claws twitching. She sighed. Even if the payment was 10% of what Hordak was offering, they still would have accepted the mission. Adora couldn’t, in good conscience, leave someone to die on a hostile world. Catra’s indignant cry snapped her back to the present.

“Hey, wait! You said ‘we’! Are you coming along with us?”

Hordak nodded once.

“Affirmative. This is non-negotiable,”

Catra looked like she wanted to object but Adora clapped a hand over her mouth. More hands were more weapons, after all.

“That’s perfectly fine, sir. Who exactly are we looking for?”

Hordak waved again and this time the number on the screen disappeared to be replaced with what could only be described as a “family photo”. Hordak sat on a large metal seat, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. A small smile graced his features. Perched on the arm of the chair beside him with short legs drawn up against a stocky body was a young woman. She was dressed in dirty, oil-stained overalls and grinned at the camera with a wide, manic smile. She had pink human-like eyes that were overshadowed by the sheer  _ volume  _ of her hair. It was a soft lilac color and trailed all the way down her back in two twintails. The length alone was taller than the woman growing it!

Catra squinted as she tried to puzzle out whether the woman in the photo was human or not. Surely a fully-fledged human didn’t have hair that long or eyes that color? She wanted to ask Adora if humans could look like that, but worried that she might think her question insensitive. Perhaps she was a hybrid like Mermista?

Now it was Catra’s turn to be pulled out of her musings as Hordak continued his explanation.

“Her name is Entrapta. I’ll forward the coordinates of her last known location on Beast Planet to you and meet you there,”

Adora nodded smartly.

“Don’t worry, sir! We’ll all work together to bring your daughter back safe and sound!”

“Yeah! Sixteen-year-olds are tougher than we give ‘em credit for!” Catra chimed in.

Hordak’s ears went flat and his lips curled upwards in a sneer.

“She’s no child! She is my  _ wife!” _

Catra and Adora’s mouths clapped shut. They glanced back at the photograph on their screen and noticed, for the first time, the matching purple diamond-shaped gems around both their necks. Hordak opened his mouth as if to say something else but Catra was already lunging forward with a cry of, “Yep! Sounds good! Thanks for the coordinates, we’ll meet you on Beast Planet soon!” She slammed her hand down on the console, cutting off the transmission.

Adora released all the air in her lungs with a drawn out  _ woosh. _

“Well, that was certainly awkward,” she mumbled.

Catra ignored her, opting instead to input the coordinates to Beast Planet in SWFT-WND’s navigation. Adora came to stand beside her as a flicker of confusion fluttered across the Felidaes’s face.

“Hey, Adora…” Catra began. “These coordinates are actually  _ really close by. _ ”

Before Adora could ask what she meant by that, Catra was leaning slightly over the console to peer outside the ship. She lifted a clawed hand to point. “Yeah! Beast Planet’s actually  _ right there!” _

Adora followed the line of her arm to where she was pointing. She was right! Beast Planet was close enough for them to make out the shape of individual landmasses and bodies of water. Adora felt something stirring in the back of her mind, like a little voice telling her something was wrong.

“The scrap field…” Adora found herself muttering.

“Yeah! We were just there! We’re lucky that we were in the area, eh? Really saves on fuel!” Catra’s voice was excited, but Adora could see how she was nibbling the corner of her bottom lip. Catra only really did that when she was nervous...or guilty.

That strange feeling was back.

Adora chose to stow that feeling away to confront later. After all, Catradora Heroes for Hire had a mission!


	4. Touching Down on Beast Planet

Catra, Adora, and SWFT-WND touched down on the surface of Beast Planet first. Adora piloted them to land on a bare strip of beach, as the forest cover of the planet was simply too dense to land anywhere else. The cruiser had barely touched down in the sand before Catra was already leaping down from the Launch Bay, Stun Baton at the ready.

She sniffed the air, scenting for any potential threats, ears tuned for the sounds of approaching foes.

Nothing.

Silence, save for the humming of the SWFT-WND’s engines.

“Clear,” she called over her shoulder.

Adora emerged from behind her and drew a sabre from her belt.

“Any sign of Hordak?”

Catra huffed an errant strand of mane out of her face.

“Nah, though who knows how far away from this planet he was when he first called us. Might take him a day or two to catch up. I say we just go on without him,”

Adora wanted to object, to remind Catra that the two of them could potentially be facing down something they had never fought before and should wait for whatever assistance Hordak’s presence could offer, when the sand around them starting whipping into the air in a frenzy.

Catra instinctively reached out to grab her friend’s arm, but Adora wasn’t worried as she stared upwards.

A mismatched amalgamation of scavenged parts that could loosely be described as a “spacecraft” was descending through the clouds, kicking up sand as it went.

“You’d think with all his money he could afford a better ship!” Catra snarked over the roar of its motor.

The ship landed heavily in the sand with a thunderous _thwoomp._ The engines didn’t even have time to cool before a side panel shrieked open and Hordak jumped out onto the beach. He didn’t even look up at the two captains as he fiddled with some strange combination of cannon/computer strapped to his arm.

“I apologize for making you wait, the hyperdrive on my ship has been touchy as of late. It took me a minute to get it booted up,”

Adora’s eyes widened slightly. Not even the SWFT-WND had hyperdrive capabilities, as high-end as it was. The device on the alien’s arm let out a series of shrill mechanical shrieks that sent Catra’s ears flat before it steadied out into a rhythmic beep.

Hordak swept his arm in a wide arc through the air before pointing it in one direction, straight into the forest gathering along the shoreline.

“She’s this way. Not too far in, thankfully,”

He set off at a “brisk” pace, more like a jog really, forcing Adora and Catra to practically run to keep up with him and his longer stride. Catra was internally debating whether or not to simply drop down on all fours and run as her feline instincts commanded.

“Hordak, sir,” panted Adora, already breathless. “That ship of yours...did it already come pre-installed with warp drive when you purchased it, or did you manually install it?”

Hordak made a low rumbling noise in his throat that sounded almost akin to a growl before answering.

“Neither. My ship, Emily, as Entrapta calls her, was built entirely by my wife’s hand from scavenged parts on Dryl. The warp-drive was as well,”

Adora stumbled for a beat.

Dryl? The large, nearly barren industrialized planet with vast mineral resources?

By now the trio had crossed under the tree line, the dense canopy shielding them from the piercing light of the planet’s sun.

“So Entrapta is from Dryl? Are you as well?” Adora continued with her line of questioning.

“She is. I am not,”

“Wow, talk about a man of few words,” grumbled Catra from her place beside Adora.

Adora, stubborn as she was, would not be swayed by terse sentences.

“What is Dryl like? Catra and I haven’t gotten the chance to stop by, but I hear it’s the _best_ place to go for tech!”

Hordak fiddled with something on his arm’s computer before changing course slightly to go vaulting over a fallen log. Catra and Adora followed, with the Felidae landing far more gracefully. Though the worry-lines in his face were still present, Hordak softened a little at the mention of his home.

“You have heard correctly. Dryl boasts some of the greatest technological achievements in the galaxy, though the planet was not always such. In the years since my wife ascended to the throne, she’s taken it upon herself to make our kingdom one of advancement and opportunity.”

This time both Adora _and_ Catra stumbled.

Ascended to the throne?

“So Entrapta’s a...princess?” Catra choked out.

“Queen,” Hordak corrected. “Both of her parents passed away when she was but a child, and she became regent. Upon her marriage to _me_ , as per Drylian tradition, she earned the title ‘Queen of Dryl’.”

Adora swallowed nervously from all the new information presented to her. The person they were set to rescue, Entrapta ( _Queen_ Entrapta, her mind supplied) was co-ruler of one of the largest and wealthiest planets in the Planetary Alliance! Should they fail to rescue her, it could potentially be a diplomatic incident depending on whoever it was that forced her to crash-land in the first place. 

Wait...did that also mean the tall, angry alien beside her was _King_ of Dryl?

“That explains why you’re paying us so much,” Catra thought aloud.

Though her words were careless, Adora could see the way Catra clenched and unclenched her fists. Her pupils had narrowed into slits, with her tail slicing the air anxiously. Without stopping to consider what she was doing, Adora slipped a hand into Catra’s, giving it a firm squeeze.

Catra’s shoulders stiffened for all of a second, before she hesitantly returned the squeeze.

_It’s okay, Catra. I’m here for you. I always will be._

_I know you will._

The beeping on Hordak’s arm computer reached a crescendo as the trio crested over a small hill. 

There, nestled in a small crater, amongst the trees it had crushed as it came down, was a twisted, _very familiar_ hunk of metal.

It was the cabin from the scrap field with a large diagonal scrape of paint along the side that perfectly matched the color of the SWFT-WND’s hull.


	5. A Desperate Search

Catra’s steps slowed to a complete halt as Adora whispered out a horrified, “Oh no…”

Hordak was aware of neither as he full-on sprinted for the wreckage, calling out Entrapta’s name. His booted foot came down on something solid, crunching it beneath. He pulled his foot away, revealing a black, metallic face mask with red glass frames. One of the frames had popped out and lay shattered in the ground beside the mask, while the other had fractured beneath Hordak’s weight.

He shakily lifted it and turned it over in his hands. The tracking chip Entrapta had embedded in the side of it (she was always losing it around the castle, and felt that with a tracker it would be easier to find), remained blinking dimly and erratically.

“What...what do you think happened here?” asked Catra, letting her hand slip from Adora’s.

“She...she was scavenging for spare parts in an orbiting scrap field. I had just contacted her on her Wrist Comm, to ask when she wanted me to come retrieve her after she had finished scavenging, when there was a tremendous noise,” Catra could see how Hordak tightened his grip on the mask, warping the metal a little. “Right before communication was lost, she managed to alert me that she was crash-landing to the surface of the planet the scrap field orbited. That would be Beast Planet, here. As to how it happened, I can only guess that something must have knocked her out of the sky.”

Adora climbed into the hull of the downed cabin. The walls, ceiling,  _ and  _ floor had been bowed toward the center from the force of the impact, and every window had been smashed out. The door that would have led to the airlock but now just opened to a hostile world, was dangling precariously from the half-melted frame. Adora shuddered at the thought of the much smaller woman being battered and thrown about the cabin. The only comforting thought was the fact that there was no corpse to be found in a mangled heap.

Adora climbed back out. She was confronted by the strange sight of the towering King of Dryl seated heavily on the ground, cross-legged with a broken mask in his hands and a fidgety Catra hovering over him.

“She’s not in here,” Adora called.

Hordak’s ears perked up slightly and he climbed back to his feet. He attached the mask to a loop on his belt before addressing the captains of the SWFT-WND.

“If she’s not in the wreckage, she must not be far. She’s likely injured, otherwise she never would have left her mask behind. I suggest we fan out,”

“That’s a good idea. Though to be safe, we should at least all remain in shouting distance in case something sneaks up on us,” Adora suggested.

Hordak nodded once in acknowledgement before taking off in a seemingly random direction, calling for Entrapta at the top of his lungs, begging her to answer him. Once he was far enough away to not overhear their conversation, Adora sidled up to her friend.

“Catra, we  _ need  _ to find this woman. If Hordak finds out that  _ we were the ones who-” _

Catra jostled her shoulder into Adora, sending the human staggering backwards. 

“We  _ will find her _ , Adora! She’ll be okay, and we won’t have to tell Hordak  _ anything _ !”

Her tone was sharp, but her eyes were wide with frantic mix of pleading hope and desperation. 

“I know we will, pussycat...but if she’s dead, we’re going to have to come clean to Hordak and the people of Dryl about what we did to their Queen,” Adora tried to intone gently.

At this, Catra openly snarled as her claws rent the nearest tree trunk.

“So, what, we just confess to regicide and spend the rest of our lives on the run?! You saw how much money Hordak has! He wouldn’t stop until he had  _ you  _ publicly executed and  _ my pelt  _ above his mantle!” Catra gouged out another hunk of bark before the fight seemed to flee from her entirely. “I can’t...I can’t let that happen to us...to  _ you.” _

Adora placed a comforting hand on the Felidae’s shuddering back to began rubbing small circles. She glanced back at the empty cabin.

“Do you think you could track her scent? Maybe sniff the inside of the cabin and see if you can smell her out here? I know you once boasted to me about having, like, 80 billion smell receptors,”

Catra sniffled slightly but found herself chuckling nonetheless.

“It’s 80  _ million, _ ” she corrected. “And yeah, I could give it a try.”

Catra approached the ruined cabin, almost hesitantly, before climbing inside and inhaling deeply. Her highly-attuned senses automatically filtered out the smell of rust and oil from the cabin, leaving behind the signature scent of sweat and blood. 

“It’s fresh.  _ Really  _ fresh. She must have been knocked unconscious on impact and only just recently had enough strength to leave. I don’t want to alarm you, but it  _ does  _ smell like she was injured,”

Adora, despite her friend’s attempts to preserve her nerves, looked rattled.

“Well? Can you track it?”

Catra sniffed the air, her ears pressed almost horizontal in concentration.

“Yeah, I think I can. Come on! We don’t have time to waste!”

Catra leapt down from the cabin, alighting on the ground on all fours after fully giving herself over to her Felidae instincts. She darted in the opposite direction Hordak had gone. Adora followed as close behind as she could.

Every so often, Catra would pause to sniff the air again before correcting her course.

Though Adora herself didn’t believe in any Gods, she found herself praying for success nonetheless.

Suddenly, after what felt like a hundred miles but was most likely less than one, Catra jumped back up onto her two feet.

“She’s close!”

“I think I see something!”

This time Adora was the one who ran ahead, crashing through the undergrowth. She took all of a few dozen steps before slowing to a stop. She felt all the air leave her body at once. 

They had found Entrapta.


	6. Too Late

The woman was laying flat on her back, unblinking eyes staring forever up at the sky. Her long twintails lay pooled around her head, but the violet sheen had dulled to a sickly near-grey. One arm lay on her chest, clutching the purple gem around her neck while the other was stretched out, limp fingered. Strange, pulsing black tendrils that looked to belong to some kind of plant were wrapped around her body.

Neither Catra nor Adora saw her chest rise.

“Gah-no! Sonofa-! She’s...we’re-”

“We’re too late…” whispered Adora.

Catra rounded sharply on Adora and seized her by the shoulders. Adora was vaguely aware of claws pricking through her tunic, but she couldn’t be bothered to feel any pain beyond the overwhelming numbness that had consumed her.

They had failed their mission.

Someone was dead.

Someone was dead because of  _ them. _

Catra’s frantic jostling seemed to shake her back to reality, if only for a moment.

“Adora, listen to me! We  _ need  _ to get out of here! We have to go back to the SWFT-WND and make for the farthest reaches of space before Hordak finds out what’s happened!” She shook her friend again. “Do you understand me? We need to  _ run _ !”

Adora was suddenly seized with a surge of  _ fury. _ She physically reached out and  _ pried  _ Catra’s claws off of her shoulders, delighting in the way the Felidae flinched in slight pain.

“Have you lost your damned mind?! You end up killing a Queen, and you just want to drag me into your cowardly desire to  _ flee?!” _ she practically roared.

Catra reeled back as surely as if she had been struck. Then Adora’s words seemed to fully sink in and her fangs flashed in a snarl.

“Are you saying that you blame  _ me  _ for killing her? Yeah, I was the one who crashed into the scrap, but  _ you  _ could have stopped me at any time!” she jabbed a finger at Adora’s chest. “That’s  _ soooo  _ like you, isn’t it? Putting the blame on others for  _ your  _ mistakes!”

“I  _ tried  _ to stop you! I  _ warned you  _ that you might get someone killed with your recklessness! The least you can do is own up to what you did and face it with some courage!”

It felt like Adora was seeing things through a fog. She desperately wanted the sight of Entrapta lying there lifeless to not be real. She wanted the comfort and security from earlier that day, when nothing seemed to ever go wrong and every mission was a success. She wanted to go back in time and convince Catra to find some less dangerous pastime than dodging destroyed freighters in a scrap field. She wanted to rage and scream at the injustice of it all. She wanted to wake up tomorrow in her bed on the SWFT-WND instead of a prison cell on death row.

Most of all, though, she just wanted Catra to tell her that it would be okay. That  _ they  _ would be okay.

“I heard you two shouting, have you found her?”

Adora’s face drained of every last drop of blood and Catra let out a squeak that would have been adorable in any other circumstance. Hordak was coming up behind them, looking almost hopeful.

Catra stepped forward.

“Hordak, I-”

The alien’s whole body  _ bled  _ agony as he caught sight of his fallen wife. He let out an anguished wail before dropping heavily on his knees at her side. Hands that trembled violently carded through her lifeless tresses.

“C-come on ‘trapta...you have to get up now. I’m here. I found you. You’re  _ safe  _ now. We can go home…”

He inhaled shakily before curving his body over hers to press their foreheads together. Now both hands were gripping her slack face. Entrapta’s eyes were still half-lidded and unmoving. Hordak let out a pained keening noise that the other two weren’t even aware he was capable of making.

That sound of loss, of grief, threw everything into sharp relief for Adora. If either of them came clean to Hordak about what  _ really  _ happened to his wife, the two of them would be separated. Imprisoned.  _ Killed. _ The man already looked half-insane with sorrow. There wasn’t a single reality in which Adora was willing to inflict that pain on Catra, even if confessing to their manslaughter was the morally correct thing to do.

Just as Adora made her decision to run back to the SWFT-WND with Catra in tow, the Felidae stepped forward and placed a hand on Hordak’s shoulder. The King of Dryl was still muttering near-silent entreaties.

“Please...I’ll make you all the t-tiny cakes you want. Cupcakes you called them? Just...just come back. Please! D-d-don’t leave me…”

Adora realized what Catra was doing a split second after it was too late to stop her.

“Hordak, sir, you deserve to know the truth,” Catra glanced over her shoulder at Adora with a watery smile. “ _ I’m  _ the one who caused her to crash. While Adora was asleep, I took the SWFT-WND for a joyride and ran into the cabin she was scavenging from.  _ I  _ k...killed her.”

Hordak’s voice was low.

Dangerous.

“ _ What  _ did you say?”

“I said-”

“Catra, no!!”

Adora dove at her friend, tackling her bodily to the ground just as Hordak brought the weapon on his arm around to bear. A bright red beam of energy shot forth from the weapon and pierced straight through the trunk of a tree, obliterating it entirely.

Catra crab-shuffled away from the furious ruler as Adora leapt to her feet and drew her sabre. 

“Hordak! Don’t do this! It wasn’t Catra! It was  _ me!” _

Adora was barely able to dodge out of the way of the second blast as Hordak let out a howl of fury. Catra rolled to the side, landing hard on Entrapta’s chest. The Felidae was about to jump back into the melee when she heard it over the sound of the violence. It was faint, but unmistakably present.

Breathing.

Entrapta.

Entrapta was breathing!


	7. A Sliver of Hope

“Holy sh- Adora! She’s alive! Entrapta’s alive!!”

Adora had all of a split second to shoot her a look of wide-eyed relief before she was parrying a swipe of Hordak’s claws with the flat of her sabre. 

“Hordak, stop! She’s okay!” she exclaimed.

The man either didn’t hear her or didn’t believe her, for he showed no signs of ceasing his attack. Catra’s frustration at his obtuseness reached a boiling point and she snapped out, “Hordak, you giant idiot! If you don’t calm the hell down _right now_ you’ll lose her for real!”

 _That_ seemed to finally do the trick.

Hordak let his arms fall to his side. He looked from Adora to Catra to Entrapta and back to Adora again with an expression so vulnerable, like he was scared to hope. Adora sheathed her sabre.

“Hordak, sir, I _swear to you_ that Catra’s not lying. Your wife is alive,”

“She’s all tangled up in these weird vines,” elaborated Catra, giving one of them a tug. “Didn’t you say that this planet feeds off of people’s weaknesses? Maybe she was too injured in the crash to resist it and now the planet is feeding off her.”

Hordak and Adora kneeled beside Catra.

“Truthfully, I wasn’t sure what was meant by ‘it feeds’ when I learned about this wretched planet. I thought it was more of a crushing presence than a true, tangible manifestation,” Hordak admitted.

Adora wiggled her sabre underneath one of the vines, as close to Entrapta’s skin as she could get without nicking it.

“Either way, we need to free her and get her medical attention as fast as possible,”

Saying so, Adora drew her sabre upwards with a sharp twist of her wrists. The blade immediately met resistance against the spongy plant-matter. Adora gave it a few more tries but no matter how much force she put into it, the sabre refused to sink so much as a single millimeter into the vine. Catra and Hordak even gave a spirited go at it with their claws (and fangs), but were met with similar results.

Whatever these vines were made of, it was tougher than any weapon they had on them. Catra briefly suggested using Hordak’s arm cannon to _blast_ the plants away, but the look of sheer bafflement he and Adora levelled at her quickly quelled that idea.

By this point, Hordak’s carefully coiffed hair was a riot of fluff from how many times he had run his own hands through it to calm his nerves. Adora was valiantly tugging as hard as she could at a fistful of vines. Catra just continued sawing quickly at them with her claws until the points were practically worn down to nubs.

Adora then snapped her fingers as a bolt of genius (if she did say so herself) struck her.

“Hey, pussycat, what if we went back to SWFT-WND and detached one of the precision lasers we use for soldering repairs and bring it here? If it can cut through four inch thick steel, then I’d wager these horrible things won’t stand a chance,”

“Hey, yeah!”

Catra and Adora were already on their feet.

“I shall stay here and await your return to keep watch over Entrapta. I will also see if I cannot keep any more of these vines from growing,” Hordak stated.

The way his tone was, overly formal and clipped, gave a clear indication that he would not be budged from his spot. It was also apparent that, while success was in sight, he still worried.

“Excellent idea. Try and talk to her, too. I don’t know if she’s in a coma or what, but maybe your voice can call her back from wherever the planet took her,” called Adora over her shoulder.

She turned away, but not before catching a glimpse of Hordak’s red eyes shimmering with wetness and mouth moving in hushed words not privy to her and Catra.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The two of them hadn’t been walking for very long before Adora suddenly seized Catra by the arms and slammed her bodily against a tree. Catra was given just a split second to be shocked before Adora was crowding into her personal space.

“Just what the _hell_ was that back there?!” the human hissed.

Catra caught on immediately.

“I was just doing what _you said_ ! _You_ told me to tell Hordak the truth about our part in Entrapta’s crash! Why now the change of heart?! It just seems really wishy-washy to me-”

Catra was cut off by Adora pulling her away from the tree slightly only to slam her against the trunk once more.

“Not _that_ you absolute idiot! I mean, what was with you taking solely the blame?! Were you really just going to let him imprison and execute you? Were you really going to leave me all alone with the guilt of knowing that _I_ should be dead too, but you selfishly decided to throw your life away? What happened to running off together?!”

“Hey, back off, princess!”

Adora’s eyebrows shot to her hairline. Catra only used that nickname when she was _extremely_ angry at her. Catra took this moment of shock to wiggle her way free. Felidaes, after all, were naturally very wiggly.

“I did it for _you_ , okay? I did it because you were right! It _was_ all my fault and had Entrapta died, I would have _deserved_ whatever punishment the Court of Dryl found suitable! There’s no way in _hell_ I was going to let you suffer the same fate because of _my_ actions!”

Catra looked like she was about to cry, and probably would have if the Felidae weren’t lacking in tear ducts. Adora pressed her hand against the side of her friend’s face. Catra lifted her own hand to cover it, purring softly despite her near-tears.

“Do you think I would have been any better off without you? Like I told you earlier, you make me happy. Whatever happens today, life or death, freedom or imprisonment, we go together,” Adora said softly.

Catra let her eyes fall shut, reveling in the closeness. If this was all she would ever get from Adora for the rest of her life, she would consider herself thankful.

It was peaceful, for a time, right up until Catra opened her eyes again and caught sight of something glinting through the trees. Catra gave Adora a slightly apologetic smile before her instincts compelled her towards the “shiny”. 

There in a clearing, embedded in a cliff face, was a sword.

The hilt and crossguard were a flowing gold, with a smooth opal bedded in the space directly beneath the adamantine blade. Strange markings were carved into both the surface of the blade, as well as directly below its resting place, on the limestone cliff.

“What _is_ that?” breathed Adora.

“Well, it’s _obviously_ a sword,” Catra scoffed. “Either that or just a really big letter opener.”

Adora ran her fingertips along the hilt. She could feel where the sword jostled slightly in its cubby and with a little bit of wiggling was able to pop it out. She tested the weight of it, letting the almost razor-thin blade slice effortlessly through the air.

“Do you think this will be sharp enough to free Entrapta? I’ve certainly never seen any metal like this before, so it _has_ to be better than what we have now,”

Catra just hummed in response to Adora’s question.

“Possibly. We won’t know until we try,” Catra squatted down in front of the cliff. “What do you think these letters mean, though? They almost look like that tablet we retrieved for Bow and his family…”

Catra’s ears suddenly perked up. She fiddled with her wrist communicator until a small projection appeared. Sure enough, the First One’s alphabet codex Bow had sent them matched the literal writing on the wall.

Adora’s eyes flickered from the projection to the wall as she slowly translated the message over Catra’s shoulder.

“‘For...the honor of...Greyskull’?”


	8. She-Ra's Introduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this is a short chapter.

Catra was suddenly thrown to the ground with a shriek as the woman behind her was instantly consumed in a pillar of light.

“Adora!!”

She squinted against the harsh light, pupils contracting to mere slits to accomodate for it.

Then as quickly as it started, the light burned out, leaving Adora standing there looking confused.

Or at least, it _kind of_ (?) looked like Adora.

The woman that now stood there was seven feet tall, broad-shouldered and muscular. Dusky blonde hair had been bleached golden and now hung wild. Eyes that glowed an ethereal blue rather than the comforting color of the sky, stared down at the trembling Felidae.

“A...Adora?” Catra ventured to ask.

The woman held a hand to her forehead and mumbled, “No. Yes? Maybe? I still _feel_ like myself, but I also feel like someone else. I...I think her name is She-Ra? At least, that’s what the sword is telling me.” 

Catra stood and cautiously approached, horrified to see that now, where she once stood eye-to-eye with Adora, she now only stood chest-high to She-Ra.

“How do you feel?” she asked, fighting to keep the tremor out of her voice.

She-Ra’s fists flexed experimentally.

“I feel...strong. I think with this new body and this sword, we can free Entrapta,” She-Ra’s eyes fell self-consciously. “How do I look?”

Catra struggled to string together any semblance of an answer in the wake of this titaness.

_You look like you could snap me in half and I would thank you for it._

_You’re enormous!_

_You look like a warrior from the old stories!_

Instead, Catra simply exhaled one word.

“...radiant.”

Adora beamed, relieved.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Hordak managed to tear his eyes away from Entrapta’s prone form at the sound of two bodies crashing through the undergrowth towards him.

“I’m glad you’ve returned. Did you retrieve-”

The words on his lips died at the sight of the giant blonde woman. He blinked rapidly.

“Catra, who is-”

“Long story, but we found a magical sword that turned Adora into this. Her name is She-Ra. She-Ra, Hordak. Hordak, She-Ra,” Catra replied.

Hordak couldn’t even muster up a token resistance at this sudden change of events. He just watched as She-Ra seized one of the vines around Entrapta and sliced through it with her sword. Catra whooped in triumph right up until she caught a tangy, metallic scent. She looked down to see black, tar-like liquid oozing out of the severed vines. Hordak was already gathering a bit up to run between his forefinger and thumb.

“This looks like…”

“...blood.”

Just as She-Ra finished cutting away the last of the vines, the ground exploded outwards.


	9. The Beast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another shorty chapter. Die mad about it.

Catra twisted her body to land gracefully on her feet like she had done so many times before. Hordak himself was able to catch Entrapta mid-air and angle the trajectory of their joined fall so that he thudded down hard on his back with her clutched protectively to his narrow torso.

The  _ thing  _ that had erupted from the ground could only be described as  _ eldritch. _

It was easily at least thirty feet tall with a shiny, gelatinous body the color of obsidian. The “vines” that Entrapta had been tangled in were actually its  _ tentacles.  _ Numbering in the dozens, with even more sprouting from the creature’s skin, they whipped wildly at the air. Seven wide, horizontal eyes rolled, ever open.

She-Ra made the first move, lashing out with her sword and spearing the creature through its middle. It let out a pained shriek like the sound of a dying star which forced Catra to cover her highly sensitive ears to block it out.

Hordak looked like he wanted to pull his own off, but didn’t want to risk letting go of his wife. She-Ra yanked her sword back out as more of the creature’s blood rolled sluggishly from the wound. The creature was still screaming, but quieter enough for Catra to brandish her stun baton.

“Hordak, do you think you can take out some of its eyes with your cannon? Or maybe blow its head off?” she asked.

The thing was an amorphous blob with no “head” to speak of, but it obviously had to have a brain in there somewhere for them to destroy!

Right?

Hordak shifted the unconscious Entrapta to his left arm so he could free the one with the cannon.

“I have a few good charges left in here, but only a few, so we’ll need to make them count!”

Catra nodded and charged, stun baton turned up to maximum power.

“Adora! Move!!”

She-Ra leapt away right as Catra drove the barbs of the stun baton into the creature’s slippery skin. It’s body went rigid for all of a few moments as electricity coursed through it, though the effect was short-lived. Catra felt the stun baton yanked from her grip. 

The creature had absorbed it!

Then, Catra’s entire world shifted as pitch-black tendrils wrapped tight around her throat and  _ lifted. _

She let out a sputtering gasp at the feel of her airway being forcefully constricted. She scrabbled desperately at the tentacles, despite knowing the futility of such an act. Dimly, over the sounds of her own choking, she could hear Adora’s horrified scream.

“Let her go!”

“A...ad...ora…”

Catra could feel the darkness creeping in at the edges of her vision before it was brilliantly lit up by a flash of incandescent red. Hordak’s cannon beam removed a decent chunk of the creature’s side, allowing Catra to tumble free from its powerful grip. She went down with a gruesome thud and lay there twitching in the dirt.

She-Ra  _ roared _ .

With no other goal than to  _ destroy,  _ She-Ra gouged and slashed at both the body of the monster and the tentacles that descended to try and seize her. Hordak fired off another blast, this time taking out at least two of its eyes. He aimed to shoot again but was stopped by a tentacle that had snuck up behind him. It seized his ankle and dragged him sharply forward.

Hordak sprawled on his back with a yelp. Entrapta slipped from his grasp and rolled away. The tentacles continued to drag him forward as he fought and clawed the earth below to get back to her. He could only watch helplessly as more tentacles slithered forward to wrap around his wife’s prone form and begin dragging her away from him.

“No! Dammit, no!! Let go of me!” he snarled.

She-Ra stopped her assault long enough to look back at him, but that was all it took. Another tendril descended. It seized the hilt of She-Ra’s sword and ripped it away from her. All at once Adora felt the strength and power leech out of her until she was back to what she had been before finding the sword.

She was no longer She-Ra.


	10. Last Act of Desperation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think all my chapters from here on out might be shorties, unfortunately.

She didn’t even have time to mourn the loss of her new powers before there was a tight grip around her waist and she was being hauled up bodily. Adora thrashed the entire way until she was eye-level with the beast.

_ Why do you struggle? _

Instantly Adora’s squirming stopped at the raspy voice that sounded like it was coming from inside her own skull.

_ Can you not see that you have already lost? Why not just allow yourself a reprieve from it all? _

Instantly Adora felt a trickle of ice down her spine. Hadn’t Hordak mentioned before that Beast Planet had the ability to get inside people’s minds? Was that what was happening?

Was this slimy creature a manifestation of the planet’s will?

_ You are correct in your assumption, little one. Though your efforts to protect yourself and your friends were valiant, I’m afraid it was all for naught. Why don’t you cease these futile efforts at escape and allow me to help you rest? _

Adora went limp. The voice in her head had become less ragged and more soothing. More like a gentle coo than a growl.

“I...I can’t. Catra...Hordak...Entrapta…”

_ They will be fine without you. You’ve spent so long hiking through this jungle. You’ve wasted so much time trying to save the purple one. She is already mine as you will soon be too.  _

Another tentacle slithered towards Adora’s face but she was able to weakly bat it away.

_ Just rest, and let me take care of you… _

Adora’s eyes were heavy. Through the haze in her mind, she was able to cast her eyes around the clearing. 

Entrapta lay where she had fallen, still as the dead, though the tendrils around her were giving the illusion of movement. Her eyes had fully slipped shut from where they were previously open and Adora wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than before. 

Hordak, bless his stubbornness, looked like he was about to be torn in half down the middle. The arm with the cannon attached to it was almost completely wrapped in tendrils, like the planet was trying to take it from him, and his other arm was digging into the soil as he tried to fight his way back to his wife’s side. He hadn’t quite given up yet, but Adora could see the way the muscles in his thin arms quivered with the effort of doing so. His mouth just kept moving, silently mouthing “pleasepleaseplease” over and over.

Catra had rolled half onto her side, struggling to stand. Purple bruises bloomed in a perfect circle around her throat, right above her collarbone. The corners of her mouth were tinged a light blue from strangulation-related hypoxia, but she was gaining some color back. The Felidae’s arm slipped out from under her and she collapsed again.

Catra seemed to feel Adora’s eyes on her, because she suddenly called out in a broken voice, “Don’t listen to it! I can hear it too! We have to keep fighting, Adora!”

Adora let one tear slip from its confines to roll down her cheek.

“We can’t,” she whispered.

“Remember what I said? I wanted to protect you! I’ll always protect you! Do you remember what you told me in return? What you promised me?!” Catra’s cry was cut off by a hacking cough.

Something cold in Adora’s chest flickered with warmth.

“‘We go together’,” she repeated.

Catra could only nod.

Adora turned back to face Beast Planet’s Manifestation.

“You…”

She cocked her arm back.

“...will not…”

Her hand balled into a fist.

“...TAKE THEM!!”

Perhaps there was a bit of She-Ra’s strength still in her. Adora’s fist punched cleanly through the skin of the creature up to her shoulder.


	11. Success!

Her first sensation was that the texture surrounding her arm was akin to that of chilled gelatin. Then the second, immediately following the first, was that she had somehow plunged her hand directly into a vat of dry ice. 

She shrieked in pain, but fought down the urge to pull her arm out, choosing instead to unclench her fist just long enough to get a firm grip on the substance engulfing her hand. Once she had a handful of it, she pulled back with all her might.

A red, faintly pulsing and grapefruit-sized chunk of goo came away with the sound of tendons tearing.

The effect on the creature was instantaneous.

It’s remaining eyes widened comically and the tendrils fell away. Adora let the fistful of goo fall alongside herself. She landed a bit awkwardly on her ankle but was able to roll away to disperse most of the impact from the fall. Still, though, she would have a sprain for a bit.

The creature didn’t even make a sound as every single one of its still-intact eyes closed either in death or submission. It went as slack as a shapeless blob reasonably could, before trickling back down through the ground like a stain being absorbed into a carpet. Before long, all that was left of the monster was a puddle of its putrescent blood, Catra’s stun baton, and She-Ra’s sword.

Adora limped over to where her feline friend was curled on her side.

“Catra? Catra! Please say something!” 

She pawed inelegantly at Catra’s neck. She wasn’t sure just how deep the damage went! Was her windpipe crushed? Could she even still breathe?!

Catra seized the human’s probing hand and wove her fingers through it.

“Did...did you seriously rip that thing’s heart out?” she wheezed.

“I...I ripped out  _ something. _ I don’t know what, but I don’t think it was a heart. Could have been a kidney or maybe-”

“Because that was the  _ hottest  _ thing I have ever seen,”

Catra let out a shaky laugh, her natural color fully returned. The sounds of her chuckles was quickly cut off by Adora seizing her by the cheeks and slamming their mouths together.

As far as first kisses went, it was nothing to write home about.

Just kidding.

It was  _ amazing! _

Once they got past the initial sensation of clacking teeth and bruising lips, it quickly morphed into something more soft. Catra purred in delight, one arm snaking around Adora’s back to keep her right where she was.

Eventually, though, they both needed to breathe.

Adora was the first to pull away, though Catra looked like she wouldn’t object to suffocating under kisses instead of monstrous tentacles. Adora gave her one more quick peck, as a sort of “one now, more later” promise, and helped the Felidae to her feet.

“Are you both alright?”

Hordak had come to stand beside them. Entrapta was still unconscious, carried bridal-style in his arms, but already she looked leagues better than when they had first found her now that the corruption of the planet had left her. Her breathing was more pronounced, and even the lilac of her hair seemed to have more vibrance.

“Yeah, we’re okay. How’s Entrapta?” Catra replied.

“Stable, but we still need to get her medical attention. You and Adora both look like you might need some yourself,”

Catra didn’t say anything in the affirmative, just rubbed the tender spot around her throat.

Adora pointedly shifted her weight to her good ankle and hid her burnt hand.

Hordak gave them a rare, full-faced smile.


	12. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HA HA! I lied! This is a meaty final chapter! >:D

ONE WEEK LATER

Adora had her compressed ankle resting on top of the SWFT-WND’s navigation console. She watched out of the corner of her eye as Catra expertly navigated them through the atmosphere of Dryl to land at the docking port of Crypto Castle, the home of Dryl’s royalty.

“Excellent touch down, pussycat,” she smiled.

Catra just stuck her tongue out.

“Yeah, whatever. Did Hordak ever pay us for the mission?”

Adora brought up their account details (with her non-bandaged hand). Catra just nodded appreciatively.

“I noticed that he added a few extra zeros. I’m guessing the Queen’s made a full recovery, then?”

“You’ve got it, pussycat,”

Catra offered her arm for Adora to lean on and the two exited the SWFT-WND. They were greeted by another alien lifeform neither of them had seen before.

The woman stood a head taller than the both of them, with powerful-looking red pincers and a long tail tipped with a barb.

“Hello there! Welcome to Dryl! I’m Scorpia!”

Without missing a beat, she stepped forward and scooped up both Adora _and_ Catra in an almost bone-crushing hug.

“Thank you both _so much_ for rescuing Entrapta! She’s the first friend I ever made after coming to this planet and I would be _devastated_ without her! Though, not as much as the King would I’d wager…”

Adora silenced Scorpia’s ramblings with an affectionate pat on her claws.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Scorpia. We’re actually here because King Hordak invited us for a visit. We also wanted to check on Entrapta and see how she’s recovering,”

Scorpia let them down gently. Catra resisted the urge to hiss in indignation at being touched by anyone other than her girlfriend.

“Of course! Here, follow me and I’ll show you to the Sanctum. That’s usually where Their Majesties can be found,”

Scorpia set off through the halls of the castle with Adora and Catra following close behind. The walls of the castle were a sleek, metallic chrome. Every so often, Scorpia would nimbly side-step an innocuous panel on the floor with a warning of, “Careful, there! This _whole place_ is boobytrapped. Last week I had to go fetch Kyle out of the Oubliette after he fell down a trapdoor.”

The captains of the SWFT-WND warily glanced around, making sure to stick even closer to Scorpia. As the trio marched onwards, Catra and Adora noticed that their trek was taking a noticeable downward angle. 

“I thought you said we were going to the Sanctum,” Catra remarked. “Isn’t that, like, on one of the higher floors? Like the Royal Quarters or something?”

“Huh? Oh! No no no!” Scorpia chuckled in a musical voice. “‘The Sanctum’ is just what Their Majesties call the science lab. Neither of them _actually_ have a ‘Royal Quarter’. They just sleep down there instead.”

Catra mouthed “weirdos” silently.

Finally the trio stopped outside of a large bay door. Scorpia rapped smartly on it with one of her pincers, calling out over the din it made.

“Hello? Your Highnesses? Are you decent? We have company! It’s those two women from your mission to Beast Planet,”

“You can cease with the formalities, Scorpia. I have known you for too long to simply be called ‘Your Highness’,” came Hordak’s muffled reply from behind the door.

“Of course, Your Highness,”

“Ugh…”

Nevertheless, the door slid upwards with a pressurised hiss. Scorpia nodded smartly at both Catra and Adora, bowed once, then was on her way to do whatever it was that giant Scorpion women did in their free time.

The door opened into a large, cavernous room filled to the brim with machinery piled about haphazardly. Two workbenches dominated the center of the room, their surfaces piled high with bits and bobs from abandoned projects. Against one wall, almost completely covering it, was a multi-monitor computer that appeared to be tracking the status of some kind of experiment.

“We’re in here,” Hordak called from a side room.

They found him sitting upright in bed, leaning against the headboard with his knees tucked up. Entrapta, now fully awake, was resting on his chest, bracketed in between his legs. She was fiddling with a circuit board, twisting the wires with a small, pointed implement. Her husband’s chin was resting on her shoulder and his arms had snaked completely around her torso.

“Catra and Adora are here to visit,” he said into her ear.

Entrapta didn’t lift her eyes from her “project”, just making an inquisitive noise. Hordak sighed.

“It’s the Felidae and the human from Beast Planet,”

“Oh!”

Entrapta had finally put her circuit board aside to beam at Adora and Catra. Her magenta eyes were bright with delight. “It’s so good to talk to you both, finally! Hordak told me about you two and your daring rescue!”

“Did he...uh…” Catra’s eyes darted nervously from Hordak to Adora. “...did he tell you how you ended up on Beast Planet?”

“Huh? Oh! You mean the fact that you both knocked me out of orbit?”

Catra’s ears went flat with shame but nodded while Adora rubbed the back of her neck. Entrapta just twirled her implement between calloused fingers.

“Yeah, he told me all about it. Honestly, I’m kind of glad you did!”

Adora and Catra both made confused-sounding noises as a lock of Entrapta’s hair slithered (and wasn’t _that_ a jarring sight?) across the bed towards the nightstand. Her hair produced a tablet from inside the drawer and passed it to her waiting hand. She continued talking without skipping a beat. “I mean, _yeah_ you almost killed me, but I feel like it was a worthy sacrifice in pursuit of data!”

“We talked about sacrificing yourself for data, Starlight,” Hordak said lowly.

Entrapta just waved off his concerns. 

“Before the corruption, and concussion, got me, I was able to collect a veritable _plethora_ of information about Beast Island! Topography, atmospheric content, even a few flora scans, all of them I was able to collect!”

Her fingers flew over the screen of her tablet. Catra ventured to ask, “So does that mean we’re not under arrest? You know...for almost committing regicide?”

Entrapta, however, was so engrossed in her data that she no longer heard them. She re-nestled back into Hordak’s arms and he answered for her instead.

“I see no reason to pursue the matter further. Despite your mistake, you both returned her to me _alive_ , I should note,” his ears then went flat in embarrassment and he was unable to meet either captain’s eyes. “And, well, I _did_ attack you. So I shall consider us ‘even’, as they say.”

The three of them (minus Entrapta didn’t notice the awkward detente happening around her) nodded in silent agreement.

Desperate to shatter the quiet, Catra nudged Adora affectionately.

“Hey, it wasn’t _all_ roughshod. We got paid, Dryl got its Queen back, and _you_ found a kickass sword that turns you into a glowing giant,”

Entrapta’s hair, which cascaded down her back freely instead of being up in its traditional twintails, floofed up at the mention of “sword”.

“You said you found something on Beast Planet? Can I see it?” she asked.

Adora drew the broadsword from her belt and held it out for Entrapta to take. The Queen went to rise, but was swiftly pulled down by Hordak tightening his arms around her.

“No. You’re still too weak to move,” he mumbled into her hair.

Entrapta just rolled her eyes, but acquiesced. He wasn’t wrong after all.

“Blonde human, Adora was it, would you hand me your weapon?”

Both her arms extended and her hands made a “gimme” motion. When her hands closed around the sword, she was surprised to find just how _light_ it was. The blade looked to be made of solid adamantite, but was lighter than a pane of glass! 

A lock of her hair picked up the implement she had been using to fiddle with her circuit board. She dragged it down the length of the blade, trying to chip of a small sample of the foreign material for testing. Instead, the implement broke cleanly in half! Behind her she could hear her husband grunt in surprise as the broken-off bit smacked him in the forehead.

“Amazing! I’ve never come across any metal like this before! And you said it had transformative properties? Do you think I could borrow it for a bit to study? Or, if you prefer not to be parted with it, I can offer you a room in the castle until my diagnostics on it are complete!”

Adora hemmed with discomfort. She didn’t feel quite right relinquishing such a powerful artifact to someone else who might not know how to handle it, but she also didn’t want to risk upsetting a _Queen_ of all people.

“Well, we would _love to_...but Catra and I are pretty nomadic by nature and...well...besides! We can’t just leave my best weapon behind when we go on dangerous missions, can we?”

Entrapta didn’t object, though she did look noticeably more crestfallen. Seeing his wife’s moue and sensing the growing internal conflict from Adora, Hordak chose that moment to offer a compromise.

“If I recall, Starlight, you needed assistance in retrieving First One’s and Other Worlds’ tech, correct? Perhaps we could employ Catradora Heroes for Hire as sort of ‘Official Royal Tech Retrievers’? If they find anything of note on their future missions, they could bring it back to us in exchange for a bounty. Then, while I catalogue their findings and process their payment, _you_ could study her sword for a bit,”

He shot Adora a look that was half “you don’t need to accept if you don’t want to” and half “please work with me here”. Catra just kept muttering, “O.R.T.R?”

Adora blinked in surprise as Hordak gently took the sword from Entrapta to hand back to its owner.

“That...actually sounds _really good_. If you can help me find out who She-Ra is, then all the better!”

Entrapta looked like she wanted to ask who She-Ra was, but decided not to press her advantage. From there, the four of them passed their visit in a pleasant manner. Before long, it was time for Adora and Catra to depart with a fond farewell and a promise to return to Dryl for a visit, irrespective of their duties as Official Royal Tech Retrievers.

*~*~*~*~*

“So...looks like we’ve been employed by the crown,” smirked Catra as the SWFT-WND lifted off the launch pad.

“Seems that way…” Adora muttered.

She was staring out of the wind screen of their ship, watching as Scorpia waved goodbye from far below. The taller woman had a blonde teenager tucker under her arm tangled up in netting who also waved, if a bit more awkwardly. Adora could only guess that must be Kyle.

She watched until her ship ascended far enough into the atmosphere that the figures on the ground were little more than formless dots. She turned back to Catra, taking her friend’s free hand in her unbandaged one. She pressed a delicate kiss to each one of the knuckles.

“Where to next, pussycat?” she smiled without looking up.

“Well, I’d recommend more Asteroid Dodging, but I don’t want to end up scraping a Duke or Count off the hull this time,”

Adora shuddered at the thought.

“You make an _excellent_ point. How about we just pick any random direction, engage the FTL drive, and see where we end up?”

Catra smiled and pulled her hand free only to flip it palm-up to entwine their fingers together.

“Sounds good to me. Wherever we go, we go together,”

“Together,”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm currently working on a prequel to this fic! Check back to see when it's added!


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